Runner Attempting Trans-America Record Denies Cheating Allegations

Robert Young, a 33-year-old ultrarunner from London, is attempting a world record for the fastest crossing of America on foot. Averaging more than 65 miles a day, he is on pace to break the 36-year-old mark.

Yet nearly 2,000 miles into the trek, questions from the running community have forced Young and his crew to address accusations of cheating.

On May 14, Young left Huntington Beach, California, planning to run the 3,000 miles to New York City by June 29. The current record stands at 46 days, 8 hours, and 36 minutes, set by Frank Giannino Jr. in 1980.

The quest to become the fastest person to cross the country on two feet has become an elusive prize for many renowned ultrarunners. Already this year, two attempts at the mark have failed.

Now in Illinois, Young is nearly two-thirds of the way to Times Square. His route follows the country’s back roads, avoiding traffic and major cities. He completes most of his mileage at night next to an RV driven by his crew. He carries a tracker that broadcasts his live location on his personal website.

But as he continues moving east, skeptical runners analyzing GPS data derived from that live tracker have raised suspicions about his pace. Video that claims to show Young’s support vehicle driving slowly through eastern Kansas in the middle of the night—without Young in view—has also been posted to the forums on the running website LetsRun.com.

The evidence has led members of the ultramarathon community, including Gary Cantrell, the race director of the Barkley Marathons, to ask: Has Young been riding in the support vehicle for portions of the route instead of running?

Young vehemently denies he is cheating.

For more than an hour on June 10 Young and members of his crew spoke with Runner’s World over FaceTime to address the allegations. Young said he is frustrated, and the negative comments are affecting his performance. Since an online forum called “Robert Young’s Fake Run Across America” surfaced last Wednesday, his pace has slowed to roughly 50 miles a day.

“The only time I have ridden in the van is when I have stopped for the day and turned the GPS off and we have gone ahead in the RV to get some food; we then come back to that point when I start again,” Young said. “At no point, apart from those sorts of times, have I ridden in the van or will I ride in the van.”

Running Across the Country Is Hard to Prove

Young spoke on the phone from inside the RV, which was not moving. At certain points during the interview, Dustin Brooks, a member of Young’s support crew, interjected.

“We are spending huge amounts of time on this, even though Rob needs every moment to spend resting and running,” Brooks said, referencing the effort to allay suspicions about the record’s legitimacy. “The fact of the matter is, we have been found by a number of people who have turned up and Rob has either been in the van when it’s still, or running. Anyone who has turned up to find us has.”

According to a runner named Asher Delmott, 25, who set out to find and run a few miles with Young at approximately 1 a.m. on June 5, that’s not the case.

Delmott told Runner’s World that he used Young’s live tracker to find the runner’s RV on a highway near his home outside of Emporia, Kansas. He said he thought Young would be lonely in the middle of the night and might appreciate the support of a running companion. Delmott first spotted the RV while driving in the opposite direction, but he did not notice a runner in front of or behind the vehicle.

Delmott turned his car around at the nearest intersection and pulled up behind the support van, which is when he began recording video on his phone showing the slow-moving RV. No runner is visible.

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Delmott posted the video and an account of his experience that night to a forum on LetsRun.com. The thread has since reached more than 2,000 posts.

“My idea was that if he was cheating, hopefully other people would see this and then could gather better evidence,” Delmott said.

With the help of his father, a former detective in Emporia, Delmott also acquired security camera footage from a carwash along Young’s published route. The video was taken three hours and roughly 30 miles before Delmott encountered the RV. It shows the vehicle slowly driving by with no runner.

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Young denied that he was in the van when the two videos were taken. He said that while he normally runs as close to the vehicle as possible, there are times when he has been separated from it. He also said that on a few occasions, he has left the live tracker in the RV instead of carrying it.

He said that the RV could have stopped for gas while he continued running and the RV needed to catch up. He also said on busy roads, he sometimes runs on the opposite side of the road, facing traffic. “I could have been on the other side of the road. I don’t know. I could give you 50 different reasons,” Young said.

He pointed out that many of his running clothes are black with few reflective elements. He carries a hand torch at night but does not wear a headlamp.

Brooks, on Young’s support crew, said the footage is unreliable. “If there’s [security] footage that shows part of the van, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have the tracker to be findable,” he said. “We are doing everything we can.”

In a later email, Brooks provided a more detailed explanation of what happened that night. “At some point Rob dropped off the pace and Michael [a member of the crew], who was driving, failed to notice. So Rob ended up isolated. He continued on to a town and called Michael from a stranger’s phone to tell him to stop.”

Brooks also wrote that the crew had been in contact with the car wash to review a lengthier portion of the footage. He said they found Young running by nine minutes after the RV, and plan to release that video to social media. As of press time it has not been posted.

The crew has since uploaded dozens of photos and videos of Young running to Facebook. Young also released an eight-minute video showing how he is recording the distance. He rotates between two GPS watches, and he logs his mileage in a black binder.

An Ambitious Pace

Brooks detailed a typical day during Young’s record attempt: From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Young rests. He then runs 30 to 40 miles through the night before another one to three hours of rest. During the day he walks until he has completed his desired distance, usually 65 miles.

Several ultrarunners remain skeptical about Young’s pace. Gary Cantrell, who has been running ultras since the 1970s and now organizes the Barkley Marathons—known as one of the hardest footraces in the world—said Young’s speed over several days would be nearly unprecedented if it is legitimate.

He noted that according to an analysis of the live tracker data in the first half of Young’s journey, his pace consistently increased at night and often hovered between 6:30 and 7 minutes per mile. This, after days of logging more than 60 miles.

“I have been around multiday races for a long time,” Cantrell said. “If he can kick it for a week of what he says he is doing, I would be impressed. Looking at his credentials, I don’t think he could do it for two or three days.”

Young, for his part, cited a string of endurance feats during the interview to prove his athletic capability. He was the winner of the Race Across USA Marathon Series in 2015, running 3,080 miles over the course of 140 days in 482 hours and 10 minutes—a 9:34 per mile average. He also said he has beaten Dean Karnazes’s record for the longest run without sleep, running 373.75 miles in 88 hours and 17 minutes.

On his website, Young describes himself as an accomplished triathlete, who only took up extreme distance running in 2014. He writes that he has run the equivalent of 476 marathons in 420 days, winning 96 of them.

Young said he plans to release GPS data gathered from the watch he wears. (Currently, only the live tracking information has been posted online.)

“I Am Not Pinocchio”

Among Young’s supporters are his sponsors, Skins compression gear and Open Tracking. “We believe in Rob and his quest to set the record for fastest run across the U.S. and will continue to support his adventures,” wrote Chistian Hut, the chief marketing officer of Skins, in an email to Runner’s World.

Young is also raising money for three nonprofits.

Several ultrarunners have come to his defense, including Lisa Smith-Batchen, who was forced to quit her own trans-America run earlier this year after requiring emergency gallbladder surgery.

“It’s incredible what he’s doing,” Smith-Batchen told Runner’s World. “If I thought for one second he was cheating, I would not be supporting this at all. I told Rob and his crew on the phone, ‘Look, I’m sticking my neck out for you guys. So if you’re cheating, I will never forgive you.’”

She did say Young has made mistakes in his record-keeping. “I do feel he could have done a few things differently," she said. “I would have a watch on each hand. I’d have the tracker in my back pocket, and I’d download somewhere like MapMyRun or Strava, if you have the ability to do that.”

After 45 minutes on FaceTime, Young’s crew said he needed to get back on the road. Young asked for more time to talk and said it was important for him to be able to set the record straight.

“I can’t do anything apart from trying to prove that everything is being done properly,” Young said. “Integrity is very important to me, and I am really passionate about being honest.”

He held the camera closer to his face. “See this nose? I know it’s big, but I am not Pinocchio.”

Before leaving to add to the 30 miles he had already traveled that day, Young gave an open invitation to anyone who wants to come out and witness his running capabilities.

“If you do not come out and try to view it for yourself, you are always going to be negative about the fact that it’s not being done,” he said.

That invitation has already been accepted. Cantrell has joined two of his friends, both accomplished ultrarunners themselves, to follow Young for up to a week.

“If you want skeptics who would be convinced if they saw it happen in person, we are the right group,” Cantrell said. He estimates that between the three of them, they’ve run more than 400,000 lifetime miles. “You can tell [Young] we are just as ready to sing his praises.”

Update: On June 14, Robert Young's crew released additional security camera footage from Mr. G's Car Wash showing someone walking by nine minutes after the RV. The crew also released a statement to Facebook explaining how Young became separated from the RV in Emporia, Kansas.

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